Marie Antoinette school of management, give 'zem a hot dog and let 'zem dress in casual cloths for an afternoon. 'Zath should keep 'zem happy and working hard.

I worked for the aerospace version of Initech. They had this huge push, no vacation no holiday and mandatory over time for six months. The carrot was bonuses and a big party at product delivery. Week before delivery they laid more than half the staff off, hey we don't need them any more- no bonus, and only invited current employees to the party. Every time hear of a executive doing something like this I always wonder if they have a game were they see how motivate the little people can get over how little.

Contents Under Pressure:I was the chow meister at a small dotcom. We got an extra 30-45 minutes out of everyone by serving free lunches at work. So, we're talking about 10 bucks worth of food for 100 bucks worth of labor.

the_geek:Contents Under Pressure: I was the chow meister at a small dotcom. We got an extra 30-45 minutes out of everyone by serving free lunches at work. So, we're talking about 10 bucks worth of food for 100 bucks worth of labor.

I wish I got paid $200/hr.

Some of my coworkers were amazingly brilliant and worth every penny and Pad Thai

the_geek:Contents Under Pressure: I was the chow meister at a small dotcom. We got an extra 30-45 minutes out of everyone by serving free lunches at work. So, we're talking about 10 bucks worth of food for 100 bucks worth of labor.

I wish I got paid $200/hr.

Read that again. It's not what you're paid, it's what you make for the company.

Sure she's hot, but what happens when she invites you to a late-night meeting in her office with wine and condoms, trying to rekindle your hot years-past relationship, despite your being happily married, and things progress to the point that you call it off almost mid-coitus, triggering her fury and an attempt to frame you for problems with the new manufacturing line, requiring you to go into virtual reality to find a cynical international plot has been hatched from the beginning to bring you down? Disclosure, Demi Moore, Michael Douglas, R 9:40 TNT

According to AllThingsD's Kara Swisher, Mayer has instituted a few changes already at Yahoo's Sunnyvale, CA, headquarters. Among them: establishing a weekly all-hands meeting on Friday afternoons, and making all the food in its URLs Cafe, which previously priced egg white muffin sandwiches at $3.65 and teriyaki chicken paninis at $5.31, free.

If I had seen the picture out of context, I would've thought it was some romcom actress. Wow, good luck with alllll that.

/does she at least have a real degree unlike the last CEO?

She's a techie and design type, so she'll hopefully put more thought into that side of things rather than the last few CEOs who were all business types more interested in slashing and burning in order to save money.

Free food is small potatoes financially, but a very powerful management signal to employees. I'm hoping to see some small, smart acquisitions right away. Yahoo could buy up some small players in the social, media and ecommerce arenas rather than trying to take on Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, etc. in one big throw. There are a lot of small companies that would be profitable if they became divisions of Yahoo and shed their expensive management/corporate structure. Geeknet for one--buy it and Yahoo would own Sourceforge (major project hosting), slashdot (old and crusty, but enormous developer cred), and ThinkGeek (ecommerce in geek niche). I'm sure there are other small companies which, taken together, would pump up Yahoo's traffic/ad/commerce numbers. I think Mayer is smart enough to not try to bet the company on a giant-slayer application but to herd a bunch of existing properties into the Yahoo corral.

revoltingdevelopment:Free food is small potatoes financially, but a very powerful management signal to employees. I'm hoping to see some small, smart acquisitions right away. Yahoo could buy up some small players in the social, media and ecommerce arenas rather than trying to take on Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, etc. in one big throw. There are a lot of small companies that would be profitable if they became divisions of Yahoo and shed their expensive management/corporate structure. Geeknet for one--buy it and Yahoo would own Sourceforge (major project hosting), slashdot (old and crusty, but enormous developer cred), and ThinkGeek (ecommerce in geek niche). I'm sure there are other small companies which, taken together, would pump up Yahoo's traffic/ad/commerce numbers. I think Mayer is smart enough to not try to bet the company on a giant-slayer application but to herd a bunch of existing properties into the Yahoo corral.

A 30-something exec with more experience in that business that 99% of all other execs out there.

/I would pit any 30 something exec against a 65 year old who is just biding their time till retirement

Wow, that's a fair comparison. There's an old guy at runs Google, and they did that for a reason. I guess he's biding his time too?

It looks like she did some work on the application side. But it always puzzles me when someone works on so many of those projects in a short time like she did. Usually that means that she had little to do with them or she left a path of destruction. Considering some of the horrible crap Google's been spewing out recently, perhaps it's the second.

revoltingdevelopment:Free food is small potatoes financially, but a very powerful management signal to employees. I'm hoping to see some small, smart acquisitions right away. Yahoo could buy up some small players in the social, media and ecommerce arenas rather than trying to take on Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, etc. in one big throw. There are a lot of small companies that would be profitable if they became divisions of Yahoo and shed their expensive management/corporate structure. Geeknet for one--buy it and Yahoo would own Sourceforge (major project hosting), slashdot (old and crusty, but enormous developer cred), and ThinkGeek (ecommerce in geek niche). I'm sure there are other small companies which, taken together, would pump up Yahoo's traffic/ad/commerce numbers. I think Mayer is smart enough to not try to bet the company on a giant-slayer application but to herd a bunch of existing properties into the Yahoo corral.

EnderWiggnz:This decision is literally a no-brainer. It has been studied over and over, if you subsidize an on site lunch for your workers, they end up eating together, and talking about work.

It's such a no-brainer that Wal-Mart does it in Bentonville. The ROI is incredible.

Wal-Mart isn't coming off a year where they pulled from -20% revenue growth to -1% in their previous 12 months. Wal-Mart isn't sitting at a $15 stock price with no dividends. And you're comparing a 5B/yr company to a 450B/yr company.

Yahoo's been slashing costs left and right to get to a position where they're still losing revenue, just losing it less fast. Morale is in the shiatter. Putting folks together at lunch will see them exchanging headhunter phone numbers and tips on how to polish their resume. It will also increase costs without adding any profitability to the bottom line.

Would I like a free lunch? Definitely. But I probably wouldn't invest in Yahoo on the basis of them handing some out.

gingerjet:A 30-something exec with more experience in that business that 99% of all other execs out there.

Marissa Mayer's only qualification was that she was lucky enough to have been employee number 10 at Google.

In fact, the vast majority of Silicon Valley's rich and successful are not really that smart or talented. For most, their only accomplishment is having the great fortune of wondering into [Today's Big Company XYZ] as employee number [20 or less].

stiletto_the_wise:gingerjet: A 30-something exec with more experience in that business that 99% of all other execs out there.

Marissa Mayer's only qualification was that she was lucky enough to have been employee number 10 at Google.

In fact, the vast majority of Silicon Valley's rich and successful are not really that smart or talented. For most, their only accomplishment is having the great fortune of wondering into [Today's Big Company XYZ] as employee number [20 or less].

She was so super smart they stuck her in charge of a home search page that has remained unchanged for a decade